David Akers was disappointing in 2012 after being deadly accurate in 2011. / Kelley L Cox, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Garafolo, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Garafolo, USA TODAY Sports

After a rocky season and shaky performance in the NFC Championship Game, some NFL observers wondered if the San Francisco 49ers would cut kicker David Akers before Super Bowl XLVII.

They didn't. They waited until Wednesday.

The team announced Akers has been released after two seasons in San Francisco following his 12-year run with the Philadelphia Eagles. Akers was due a base salary of $3 million, but the Niners had no intention of paying after he made only 69% of his field goals in the regular season and doinked a kick off the upright in the postseason against the Atlanta Falcons.

"The 49ers would like to thank David for his service, dedication and leadership over the past two years," 49ers general manager Trent Baalke said in the press release announcing the move. "He is a true professional who represented himself and this organization with class. We wish him, and his family, all the best."

Akers, 38, still has plenty of leg left as he proved with an NFL record-tying 63-yard field goal in the season opener against the Green Bay Packers this past September. But his accuracy left plenty to be desired. He missed at least one field goal in seven of the last nine games of the regular season while battling the aftereffects of double hernia surgery.

Akers did bounce back to make all three field goals in the Super Bowl.

His disappointing 2012 followed an all-pro effort in 2011 when he made a single-season record 44 field goals.

Akers' agent, Jerrold Colton, wrote in an email to USA TODAY Sports that his client has no intention of retiring.

According to Colton, Akers had another "minor surgical procedure" within the last month to further address the lingering hernia issue that plagued him throughout 2012.